There are questions not even a child would ask. There are dependencies so dependable no doctor would diagnose them, chemicals so addictive, none would name our need dependency.

The first day that didn't happen, we resolved not to worry; these things, we told one another, have a way of righting themselves. Our children were more resourceful, more inclined to see the advantages. They climbed out their windows under dark of afternoon, kissed in parking lots in full compliance with their curfews. We grounded them for all we were worth, but as ever, their urgency was wisdom. They understood how little time had to offer them.

This was before the new ordinances, of course, which were themselves before we lost any will to enforce them.

***

[ Originally Published in Sun: A Collection of Vignettes about the Sun, Edited by Joseph Carlough and published by Displaced Snail Publications in Frenchtown, NJ. Below is the transcript of the Facebook chat in which Joseph requested my contribution, which I think is more illuminating than anything else I could write about this delightful anthology and the exuberant manner of its genesis.]

terry never thought much of my romantic decisions. i guess really he didn't think they were decisions at all.

"you don't know anything about her," he would insist, though the contention was never well-received. i was not a casual dater, even in college, and "her" was generally someone i had been sleeping beside, arguing with, reeling out and back in and/or clinging to desperately for months upon years. this assertion of my ignorance would have been unpalatably insulting, had it not been so empirically absurd.

but terry has cultivated a certain curmudgeonliness to cope with his daily exposure to the unfettered whimseys of well-funded youth, and my visible offense only inspired him to dig in his heels. "you don't know anything about any of your friends," he'd expand.

i went down to zuccotti park to see the marchers off, to chat with them a bit, to approximate and internalize their faces. this was not, in its conception, to be a terribly unusual use of a morning for me, but the project proved more complex than anticipated.

○ this is my first, and very probably last, political cartoon. it has been carefully crafted to piss off almost everyone i know, from my obamaniac friends to my most reactionary relatives. you can read the whole comic (it's only a little bit longer) and leave me angry rants over at act now.

you're looking at the people's reference librarian. one of them, anyway.

○ within minutes of my initial descent into liberty plaza, where the much-heralded occupation of wall street is now in its fiftieth day, i realized i'd been woefully misled. this was not so much a matter of bias, which, as an oft-obsessive consumer of news, i feel capable of identifying and accounting for. it was instead an utter lack of understanding among the vast majority of those assigned to report on the protest of what it was they were looking at (it doesn't help that many didn't bother to show up before settling in to pontificate). this haziness on the part of our media intermediaries has been widely perceived as a lack of purpose or organization among the occupiers themselves, but the absurdity of this appraisal reveals itself to physical visitors almost immediately.

despite the prohibition of amplified sound, the residents of zuccotti park have devised a way to be heard over the drum circles, jazz bands, political debates, and ambient city soundscapes that compete for the plaza's dense sonic space. it works like this: somebody (who can be anybody, because it's that kind of scene) shouts "mic check!"

to which more or less everyone within her sphere of audibility replies, "MIC CHECK!" in something usually very nearly approximating unison.

satisfied that "the people's mic" is functioning properly, the speaker continues with her announcement:

i did this illustration for an article about marriage equality in new york state on the act now blog. i also wrote the article. and then i had myself illustrate it. (i pretty much always get me to do my illustrations, primarily because of my extremely reasonable rates.)

in and of itself, the fact is oddly significant. by her age, most kids seem already to have identified the visual arts as something they do or don't "do." or perhaps something they do or can't do.

it's a perplexing phenomenon. most of us are pretty mediocre writers, and yet i've never heard somebody say, "oh no, i don't write," or "i only do tweets." to be fair, drawing is less closely associated than writing with one's appeal to potential employers, and so we are allowed, well before the age of employment, not to pursue it.

but i was among that endless stream of heretofore tone-deaf ninth-graders who decided to pick up the guitar (which remains, sixteen years later, one of the great pleasures of my little life). once sedentary college friends found devotion to intramural sports or modern dance. who's ever started drawing in her early twenties? "i only do stick figures," people will assure you.

it was my first year attending s.p.x. as a civilian (rather than exhibiting), and i quickly remembered how much i enjoyed festivals, how much more i wanted to be there, back when they were play, before the time was spent worrying about my "career" and the many ways in which i was failing to advance it, before the whole enterprise seemed like something i was doing wrong. to be sure, i missed having a home base, and trading affectionate barbs with my tablemates, and the sense of being part of what all the fuss was about. but i finally had time to roam the floor, to pick up unfamiliar minis and chat with their creators, to be surprised by and excited about comics.

and comics are pretty exciting. if you didn't make it down to bethesda this year, or weren't similarly liberated to wander about, here's a few things you might have missed: